VAXA | COVID-19 AI-Powered Vaccine Access Solution

Over the past ten months, Hyro has provided healthcare systems with robust HIPAA-compliant conversational AI solutions that have automated patient engagement surrounding COVID-19. With millions of conversations logged, the COVID-19 virtual assistant continues to help Mercy Health, Montefiore Medical Center, Austin Regional Clinic, and dozens more US health systems perform AI-powered risk assessment, deflecting FAQs from live agents, and supplying real-time information and updates from trusted sources.

Now, on the heels of the FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, Hyro is releasing VAXA, an AI-powered Vaccine Access Solution. VAXA is designed explicitly for healthcare systems to offload and deflect the expected burden on their live agents due to a projected 250-500% call volume increase to their contact centers and streamline their first-wave immunization plan. VAXA is built to support multiple inbound (patient-led) and outbound (provider-led) conversational flows surrounding impending COVID-19 vaccinations, including eligibility, safety, availability, and outcomes. Our end-to-end conversational AI solution focuses on four main components:

Seamless Scheduling

Upon deployment, VAXA automatically taps into the organization’s relevant data sources (e.g. FAQ web pages), as well as external trusted resources (e.g. CDC’s guidelines), and integrates with existing legacy systems and EHRs such as Epic. The information ingested is then mapped into a knowledge graph queryable by natural language, resulting in a conversational AI virtual assistant that can carry out an entire vaccination scheduling process without the intervention of a human agent and without taxing any business efforts such as deployment and maintenance (when the organization’s information updates, VAXA updates automatically).

Rather than call the organization’s support center, patients can schedule their vaccination appointment in mere seconds through simple dialogue with the virtual assistant. A patient interacting with VAXA will initially be required to present a physician referral and verify their identity. Confirmation will lead to VAXA offering and assisting the patient in scheduling an appointment based on available locations, time slots, and dates.

In the event a patient has yet to receive a referral from an authorized physician, VAXA will suggest and facilitate an appointment with a certified PCP or guide the patient through an online eligibility questionnaire as a prerequisite to proceed with booking vaccination.

Stymying Misinformation and Automating FAQs

A December Pew Research Center poll found that “about four-in-ten Americans (39%) said they definitely or probably would not get a coronavirus vaccine. However, nearly half of this group – or 18% of U.S. adults – said it’s possible they would decide to get vaccinated once people start getting a vaccine and more information becomes available.”

The historically unprecedented pace at which this vaccine has become available, coupled with the propagation of misinformation on social media platforms, has bred widespread concern, suspicion, and confusion regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.

With 24/7 data scraping from verified sources (CDC, WHO, Pfizer, state and health organizations’ guideline), VAXA is designed to deflect calls to support centers from worried and hesitant patients using stringently vetted and up-to-date information to answer a vast array of constantly updated frequently asked questions regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.

Omnichannel Flexibility

Our solution extends beyond the confines of the organization’s website; VAXA can also be utilized as a call center voice assistant in place of live agents. The same capabilities previously outlined can be initiated through a voice-only conversational flow.

Additionally, for organizations wishing to take a more proactive approach, VAXA can be installed as an SMS layer triggering automatic messaging based on criteria set by the organization, conducting scheduling flows via text, sending location-specific updates and instructions, and fielding FAQs. Finally, organizations will be able to deploy VAXA on all platforms without taxing additional efforts.

Rich Conversational Insights

One of the core advantages of VAXA is the valuable conversational and behavioral intelligence it supplies. As VAXA encourages free context-elastic conversations, organizations can examine—through a designated analytics suite—the ways in which their patients interact with them. Trends such as the volume of scheduling requests, most urgent questions, top requested vaccination locations, the average age of patients interacting with VAXA, and more, can all be transformed into preemptive measures and laser-focused, efficient service.

VAXA’s Benefits:

Over 40% call center deflection rate
Seamless deployment within a week without taxing efforts on the organization
Natural Language Understanding with both text and voice AI
Customizable based on the healthcare system, state, or CDC guidelines
Out-of-the-box integration with any EMR, legacy system, API, or tool
Optimizable call-to-action buttons and triggers
Round-the-clock scraping and live data updates
Automated live handoff for escalating issues
Proactive, dedicated hotline for inbound patient requests
HIPAA, CDC and SOC-2 TYPE-2 Compliance
360° conversational visibility with client analytics suite and insights reports

Our North Star: Your Organization and the Patients You Serve

Hyro’s Modus Operandi has always been to consistently anticipate our customers’ needs and meet them at every stage of their patients’ digital journey.

VAXA, as well as our COVID-19 Virtual Assistant, and any other product we’ve rolled out over the past year, were the outcome of fruitful discussions with our clients and partners and our unique reverse engineering approach—identify pain points before they become endemic and strive to fix processes before they become strained.

As we enter what is hopefully the last chapter in the story of COVID-19, we are committed to supporting you through this monumental undertaking with conversational AI.

Looking forward to joining forces with you,

Israel.

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About the author

Israel Krush CEO & Co-Founder, Hyro

Israel is Hyro’s CEO & Co-Founder. Starting as a software engineer at Intel, he steadily progressed to leading engineering and product teams at various high-profile startups, including Zeekit, a computer vision company acquired by Walmart. Israel’s biggest love (following his wife and three children) is excellent coffee, which serves as the jet fuel for his bigger-than-life ambitions.

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